![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
I'm probably going to return to not writing up Suzaku's memories after a bit, but for now, each one of them is going to affect him in a very different way than it was before my drops. But first, I wanted to make some notes about Suzaku after the darkness effect of being in the caves so that it can be better understood what I'm doing. I want to have it down solidly somewhere.
- While Suzaku was in the cave, he let the darkness suck away from him. It led to a massive bout of apathy because without happiness and those feelings of I love these people and these people love me, Suzaku really genuinely doesn't have a whole lot to live for. He actually basically let it happen without stubbornly holding on because he had been through a lot mentally since getting into Aather, combined with some stress related to Euphy's ... situation; essentially. Suzaku is kind of the type of person who thinks he deserves nothing good. So an absence of that was as good as being dead.
- The fact that this happened so easily led to an absence of a lot of things. He was without feeling, without emotion, without care—his mental attachments to people and their wishes were pretty much nonexistent. It's important to note that he stubbornly held fast to the fact that he deserved none of these things. Because if there is anything that Suzaku is, it's massively stubborn.
- What all this did was leave a whole within him. He remembered attachments, but perhaps as if looking at it through several foggy windows, minus all the good with it, because good = selfishness.
- When he got back a couple months ago (OOCly, I mean), he was basically cold, blunt, standoffish, and steadfast. He could only see things in their blunt basic facts because there was an absence of a whole lot of other things. Again, this ties into Suzaku's mental processes. Note: this was terribly unfun for me to play, and though I was determined to play him through it, I ... needed to depend on memories. And yeah, that's always an iffy thing to depend upon! And even then, it'd be a slow battle that wouldn't be very fun to play. I didn't think it would be as bad until I had it in action, so full admittance there.
- This led to me cheating a bit when he got booked. It gave him mental clarity that he didn't have when he was being sucked away. It didn't happen right away, but he managed to ... figure out and think about everything that happened, what he gave up, and those attachments returned in his mind because Suzaku, despite all his dickery, at his core REALLY deeply cares about those bonds he has to other people and they mean the world to him. He doesn't think he deserves them. He doesn't actually really feel these attachments, though? It's more of a logical "you're important to me and I care about you because you are" than a mixed feelings of emotions when around people he cares about (and Suzaku feels a LOT of emotions around those he cares about).
- Basically, Suzaku is still pretty cold, logical, and ... negative. Bright sides are pretty absent to him, but he's determined to feel again because of Euphy. He needs to get better for her. Suzaku would destroy the moon if Euphy required it, but mostly, he recognizes that his condition isn't one that's acceptable for taking care of her.
- As an aside to this, Suzaku's self-righteousness, his dickishness, etc. is more present in stubbornness than that angry feeling he gets when he decides to go off on rants. He's more focused than usual, because Suzaku is the type of person whose ideals can set him off.
- Also as an aside, I described his lack of happiness as if it was carved away. With it, the strong, positive leaning, or "I am right" feelings kind of went, too. Those come with a semblance of self-worth, of which Suzaku has none, but he ... also isn't self-loathing as much as usual. That sort of feeling takes up a lot, though he still sees himself as pretty much worthless.
The totality of all of this is that he ... does feel, but about 80% of it is negative and still behind several muted factors dampening it. The easiest thing to feel is sadness and guilt. Because Suzaku's mental state has never been particularly healthy, this is the result of it. Furthermore, Suzaku's the type of person who can coldly justify his behavior, up to the point where he doesn't even recognize what he feels. There's a point in canon where he keeps going and going and going and only at the worst possible moment does the well spring and he can't deal. But he has to pull it together. He was better about it in Aather, hilariously, because it's a setting that forced him to deal with things, and he knew what he wanted from Aather (companionship, acceptance, etc. even if he failed at allowing these things with Lelouch; these are all things he recognizes in canon but lets go of because of his own lack of self-worth/Euphy's death).
The other thing is that Suzaku is incredibly toneless. Even when he's speaking about something like "everyone here is basically a battery for the personae :||||" he is ... pretty direct about it, without a whole lot of feeling. Because that is what he thinks is the correct thing and that's an opinion he formed and nothing is really changing that. And given that he is stubborn, once he decides on something he is difficult to get to waver from that. It isn't so much that he sounds depressed, so much as he isn't emitting a whole lot of anything. He's telling people if only because it'll be bothersome if people assume he is being a giant dick when he's not! Suzaku also consciously has better social skills, but faking through niceties and small talk is a way of coping/making himself feel better, and he doesn't really ... have any drive to do that. He doesn't care about how anyone thinks about him except established bonds: those from his world (and especially Euphy), Beatrice, and the Peridot members he knew.
Suzaku is going to get better through his memories, as they'll allow him to feel things. I'm going to be very careful with his registry for the next while, prioritizing memories that I think will help him be enjoyable for me to play. Though Euphy coming in helped me a lot because it gave Suzaku a driving point to dedicate himself to when otherwise he wouldn't have one (and he wouldn't care about finding a way to get better). Euphy works because she is the absolute peak of what drives him in life. She accepts him and loves him, and though he doesn't know that she knows he killed his father, he does realize that, in their memories, she loved him anyway. Euphy is essentially the definition of his ideals, so.
Anyway, that's why I'll be doing write-ups of his memories, just to track his progress.
- Chasing after Arthur and bantering with Lelouch about athleticism. Saving Lelouch and being welcomed into the student council. [R1; ep6]
Essentially, this memory is one in which Suzaku and Lelouch are running around and Suzaku is mocking him for not being athletic enough. (I used to have a joke about Lelouch being so nonathletic, he would trip over grass because it was a "low growing bush"—that's still accurate!) Suzaku was determined to go find his cat, and in the process, he was also determined, no matter what, to save his friend. It wasn't really a question, because Suzaku would save someone anyway, but Lelouch is pretty much one of his three most important people in his life. At the end of the memory, he's accepted into the student council, and it makes him very happy, as it happens in spite of the fact that he's Japanese.
Throughout this memory, Suzaku is fairly cocky and happy, in a way that he doesn't think about other things and only getting the "prize," so to speak. He switched gears to SAVE LELOUCH pretty much immediately and the end is a feeling of being loved/being together and how good he feels as a result of that.
This memory will make him more inclined to depend on those he knows cares about him and accepts him, which is a good thing that he determined who and what when he got back (Euphy, Cassie, Nunnally, Ventus, and Beatrice are high on the list; Suzaku and Lelouch are at odds because Suzaku tried explaining to Lelouch what was wrong with him, so Suzaku currently doesn't feel he can rely on him). It's also a few coins in the "RE-EARN HAPPINESS" pot, so to speak.
Also, if anyone has any questions about this stuff, feel free to ask or approach me elsewhere. I'm still finding my footing on this and I've never done a plot like the one I'm doing with Suzaku's psychological state. Being able to talk it out and explain how he's handling a situation helps, because it is very unique and in contrast to his typical canonical handling.
- While Suzaku was in the cave, he let the darkness suck away from him. It led to a massive bout of apathy because without happiness and those feelings of I love these people and these people love me, Suzaku really genuinely doesn't have a whole lot to live for. He actually basically let it happen without stubbornly holding on because he had been through a lot mentally since getting into Aather, combined with some stress related to Euphy's ... situation; essentially. Suzaku is kind of the type of person who thinks he deserves nothing good. So an absence of that was as good as being dead.
- The fact that this happened so easily led to an absence of a lot of things. He was without feeling, without emotion, without care—his mental attachments to people and their wishes were pretty much nonexistent. It's important to note that he stubbornly held fast to the fact that he deserved none of these things. Because if there is anything that Suzaku is, it's massively stubborn.
- What all this did was leave a whole within him. He remembered attachments, but perhaps as if looking at it through several foggy windows, minus all the good with it, because good = selfishness.
- When he got back a couple months ago (OOCly, I mean), he was basically cold, blunt, standoffish, and steadfast. He could only see things in their blunt basic facts because there was an absence of a whole lot of other things. Again, this ties into Suzaku's mental processes. Note: this was terribly unfun for me to play, and though I was determined to play him through it, I ... needed to depend on memories. And yeah, that's always an iffy thing to depend upon! And even then, it'd be a slow battle that wouldn't be very fun to play. I didn't think it would be as bad until I had it in action, so full admittance there.
- This led to me cheating a bit when he got booked. It gave him mental clarity that he didn't have when he was being sucked away. It didn't happen right away, but he managed to ... figure out and think about everything that happened, what he gave up, and those attachments returned in his mind because Suzaku, despite all his dickery, at his core REALLY deeply cares about those bonds he has to other people and they mean the world to him. He doesn't think he deserves them. He doesn't actually really feel these attachments, though? It's more of a logical "you're important to me and I care about you because you are" than a mixed feelings of emotions when around people he cares about (and Suzaku feels a LOT of emotions around those he cares about).
- Basically, Suzaku is still pretty cold, logical, and ... negative. Bright sides are pretty absent to him, but he's determined to feel again because of Euphy. He needs to get better for her. Suzaku would destroy the moon if Euphy required it, but mostly, he recognizes that his condition isn't one that's acceptable for taking care of her.
- As an aside to this, Suzaku's self-righteousness, his dickishness, etc. is more present in stubbornness than that angry feeling he gets when he decides to go off on rants. He's more focused than usual, because Suzaku is the type of person whose ideals can set him off.
- Also as an aside, I described his lack of happiness as if it was carved away. With it, the strong, positive leaning, or "I am right" feelings kind of went, too. Those come with a semblance of self-worth, of which Suzaku has none, but he ... also isn't self-loathing as much as usual. That sort of feeling takes up a lot, though he still sees himself as pretty much worthless.
The totality of all of this is that he ... does feel, but about 80% of it is negative and still behind several muted factors dampening it. The easiest thing to feel is sadness and guilt. Because Suzaku's mental state has never been particularly healthy, this is the result of it. Furthermore, Suzaku's the type of person who can coldly justify his behavior, up to the point where he doesn't even recognize what he feels. There's a point in canon where he keeps going and going and going and only at the worst possible moment does the well spring and he can't deal. But he has to pull it together. He was better about it in Aather, hilariously, because it's a setting that forced him to deal with things, and he knew what he wanted from Aather (companionship, acceptance, etc. even if he failed at allowing these things with Lelouch; these are all things he recognizes in canon but lets go of because of his own lack of self-worth/Euphy's death).
The other thing is that Suzaku is incredibly toneless. Even when he's speaking about something like "everyone here is basically a battery for the personae :||||" he is ... pretty direct about it, without a whole lot of feeling. Because that is what he thinks is the correct thing and that's an opinion he formed and nothing is really changing that. And given that he is stubborn, once he decides on something he is difficult to get to waver from that. It isn't so much that he sounds depressed, so much as he isn't emitting a whole lot of anything. He's telling people if only because it'll be bothersome if people assume he is being a giant dick when he's not! Suzaku also consciously has better social skills, but faking through niceties and small talk is a way of coping/making himself feel better, and he doesn't really ... have any drive to do that. He doesn't care about how anyone thinks about him except established bonds: those from his world (and especially Euphy), Beatrice, and the Peridot members he knew.
Suzaku is going to get better through his memories, as they'll allow him to feel things. I'm going to be very careful with his registry for the next while, prioritizing memories that I think will help him be enjoyable for me to play. Though Euphy coming in helped me a lot because it gave Suzaku a driving point to dedicate himself to when otherwise he wouldn't have one (and he wouldn't care about finding a way to get better). Euphy works because she is the absolute peak of what drives him in life. She accepts him and loves him, and though he doesn't know that she knows he killed his father, he does realize that, in their memories, she loved him anyway. Euphy is essentially the definition of his ideals, so.
Anyway, that's why I'll be doing write-ups of his memories, just to track his progress.
- Chasing after Arthur and bantering with Lelouch about athleticism. Saving Lelouch and being welcomed into the student council. [R1; ep6]
Essentially, this memory is one in which Suzaku and Lelouch are running around and Suzaku is mocking him for not being athletic enough. (I used to have a joke about Lelouch being so nonathletic, he would trip over grass because it was a "low growing bush"—that's still accurate!) Suzaku was determined to go find his cat, and in the process, he was also determined, no matter what, to save his friend. It wasn't really a question, because Suzaku would save someone anyway, but Lelouch is pretty much one of his three most important people in his life. At the end of the memory, he's accepted into the student council, and it makes him very happy, as it happens in spite of the fact that he's Japanese.
Throughout this memory, Suzaku is fairly cocky and happy, in a way that he doesn't think about other things and only getting the "prize," so to speak. He switched gears to SAVE LELOUCH pretty much immediately and the end is a feeling of being loved/being together and how good he feels as a result of that.
This memory will make him more inclined to depend on those he knows cares about him and accepts him, which is a good thing that he determined who and what when he got back (Euphy, Cassie, Nunnally, Ventus, and Beatrice are high on the list; Suzaku and Lelouch are at odds because Suzaku tried explaining to Lelouch what was wrong with him, so Suzaku currently doesn't feel he can rely on him). It's also a few coins in the "RE-EARN HAPPINESS" pot, so to speak.
Also, if anyone has any questions about this stuff, feel free to ask or approach me elsewhere. I'm still finding my footing on this and I've never done a plot like the one I'm doing with Suzaku's psychological state. Being able to talk it out and explain how he's handling a situation helps, because it is very unique and in contrast to his typical canonical handling.